Should Lt. Surge Magneton Unlimited cost more than 1st ed?

Market
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I was looking at pop reports for cards I own, and then recent sold ebay transactions and couldnt find much for the unlimited. Yet none sold viewing the ebay sold feature, and none listed. Yet, the 1st edition has been readily available.

1st edition pop report- 98 PSA 10’s, 255 PSA 9’s, 402 graded
unlimited pop report - 25 PSA 10’s, 111 PSA 9’s, 233 graded

1st edition being a ~24.3% psa 10 rate
unlimited being a ~10.7% psa 10 rate

even compared 9’s:10’s we are looking at a ~38.4%:~22.5

PokemonPrice.com shows last psa 10 unlimited sold June 15, 2019 for an astounding $39.99 haha

I would say I could never imagine paying more for an unlimited variant than the 1st edition variant, but there are definitely rarer instances like this throughout the market?

Just crossed my mind, not sure how you guys felt about it. I think its something worth considering given the recent appreciation of pop reports

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I think it’s only rarer because the lower demand for unlimited leads to less people sending them in. I can imagine that the low selling prices and low demand act as a good deterrent to the grading fee, even at sub $10 for bulk.

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I figured someone would mention that, but honestly I dont know anybody that wouldn’t grade any WotC holo if it was a gem mint candidate @cinnaminhbun

*edit- let alone one from a $5000 booster box

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I agree and I send in cards that I believe will get 8s and 9s even, but historically, like you said, the prices have been so low on a card like this. $40 would not give me too much of an incentive unless I already had the card. I think they’ll pop up more and more over time. Unlimited is growing alongside 1st edition, even if at a slower rate. So the cards will eventually make their way out of the shadows!!

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Yeah I totally know where youre coming from. Then again, there isnt a whole lot more 1st ed graded than not so its not like there havent been people submitting.

I agree tho, the price will always be less because there is a 1st variant. But i bet that if and when more people start grading, the rate of a 10 will only be less since people will grade cards they didnt feel like grading before, which were ones that didnt warrant a 10.

im a guy who just sent 200 psa cards that I know wont get 10’s but 8’s & 9’s because its just worth it. But my 10’s have been sent a long time ago. But we will definitely see more, I assume more 1st ed’s than unlimited tho. I hope that makes sense where im coming from

edit- also worth noting the psa 10 1st ed sold for $90 a month prior to the unlimited selling for $40/ Just a different market back then

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I’m not sure what you mean by rarer instances. Most people didn’t grading Unlimited gym series holos until very recently. I have bulk unlimited holos I’ve never bothered to grade because for almost the card’s entire lifetime it has not been worth the $10 and time it takes to grade. There are plenty of cards with <10 PSA 10s because it’s not worth sending them in.

People should be extremely wary of judging a card’s price by the pop report if it doesn’t have a lengthy history of being submitted for grading. If you look at pokemon price:
PSA 9 Lt. Surge’s Magneton Unlimited: 27 graded on 9/30/2017. 111 graded on 5/19/2020
PSA 10 Lt. Surge’s Magneton Unlimited: 12 graded on 9/30/2017. 25 graded on 5/19/2020.

Those numbers will continue to climb especially as unlimited prices rise. Not everything is Neo Genesis 1st Edition. Gym series are relatively easy WOTC sets to grade in 10s.

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We live in a world now where people are apparently willing to pay a premium based on cert numbers. It wouldn’t surprise me if we start seeing a few instances where people will pay more for an English Unlimited than a 1st Edition variant purely because of Pop reports.

These trends are dumb and I think we should stop entertaining the idea that this not only COULD be possible but asking the question of SHOULD it be?

The answer is no. No it shouldn’t. Let’s stop this now.

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I could see Slowking from neo gen unlimited going for more than the 1st edition(which is already incredibly high)

Then again, a bit of a difference since that Slowking happens to be pop 1 lol

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so given all this information would it worth it to buy and hold PSA 10 unlimited holos now when they cheap because people will go for unlimited after 1st edition or they can’t afford 1st edition? I have several unlimited cards being graded and looking at picking up some PSA 10 UL.

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if you look at some of post-WoTC era cards, it’s very obvious the low pop reports are due to cards not being as popular and not as valuable, not its true rarity. be careful to judge value just on rarity. valuation is going to always be a combination of factors.

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I can tell you that I paid more for some of my unl 10s than for the first ed counterpart as they are just not available and/or very hard to grade. The Magneton is not the best example, but I certainly say that there are unlimited cards which have or will exceed their first edition version.

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Lets not forget that cards like Lt.Surge’s Magneton (UNL) are inside Theme Decks, and i know plenty of people (including myself, i own 4 Lt.Surge’s Theme Decks, that are worth around $90-100 if im not wrong) that have sealed theme decks, if Magneton price (UNL) goes up, i could see a lot of people cracking open the theme decks and trying for 10s.

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